Consent is not the be-all and end-all

[MagicMix]

Following on from the thread about the impact of porn and other threads about the implausibility of consent to brutal practices.

The focus on sexual consent in feminism in recent years has been positive to a certain extent but I think we have lost nuance when we consider consent to be the key to sexual ethics.

Consent is not a green light for whatever you want, it is the bare minimum. Sex without consent is obviously very wrong (rape or sexual assault). And most feminists have at least some understanding that coerced consent is a problem and does not equate to true consent, although some seem unable to understand that paying someone is clear-cut coercion.

But we have to go further. Consent does not make everything all right. There are some things that can never be all right and the anti-kink-shaming 'sex-positive' thinking that refuses to condemn anything as long as someone is getting sexually aroused by it has led us down some very dark paths.

If you can stomach it, here is an article about a woman who claims to be sexually aroused by being waterboarded.
www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/waterboarding-kink-sex-bdsm-torture-779066/
Now I don't believe her and my personal opinion is that the M is BDSM is a form of self-harm, but really that is not the main point. The point is, somebody did that to her because she asked for it. People are quite literally torturing other people in the pursuit of sexual pleasure and we are expected to be non-judgmental.

The point is that the S in BDSM is sick and wrong. It was said on the other thread that we need to bring back kink shaming. Yes a thousand times. They can call me a prude, frigid, accuse me of being in a moral panic, I don't care. If someone gets sexual pleasure from hurting people, torturing people, acting out scenarios that put them in the role of rapist or slave-owner, I think that person has an unhealthy, dangerous sexuality and should seek help. It should not be accepted uncritically as harmless just because there was consent.

There’s no risk to him as long as he stays within my set and agreed boundaries

Yes.

But also if you (general you) like extremely risky sex practices and were killed accidentally there might be risk to him also. So perhaps it shouldn't ever be possible for someone to legally do these things. It's a risk that both of you take. You being killed and him being prosecuted for your murder or manslaughter. Please stop avoiding the point.

This thread is behaving like the TRAs in the second paragraph. Wanting to take away my right to consent on the grounds that we’re the problem. When we’re not. Male violence in all its forms is the problem.

Male violence is a problem, yes. And people (male and female) taking part in BDSM encourage violence. It's not unlikely to think of a scenario where a man is introduced to BDSM, decides he likes it and then goes on to inflict it on a future unwilling partner. Or a man who is introduced to BDSM and then decides to rape his wife and blame her because she introduced him to it.

Think you’d have lost the fight at that analogy H1dingInSight most people on here really do have a problem with ‘them all’

Oh just stop it. I have a problem with males in female spaces. I don’t have a problem with ‘them all’. The goady bullshit is just relentless. Stick to the issue.

No, stop talking about her and her consent. Let's talk about the torturer. Is it OK for a person to waterboard her? What sort of person would be willing to commit such a cruel act without being forced, let alone enjoy it? Can a good person get pleasure from violating the Geneva Convention?

And get out of town with the idea that waterboarding is not harmful physically and psychologically. It can never be safe.

But also if you (general you) like extremely risky sex practices and were killed accidentally there might be risk to him also. So perhaps it shouldn't ever be possible for someone to legally do these things. It's a risk that both of you take. You being killed and him being prosecuted for your murder or manslaughter. Please stop avoiding the point.

Yes, you’ve nailed the main point here- that is consistently being ignored.

But also if you (general you) like extremely risky sex practices and were killed accidentally there might be risk to him also. So perhaps it shouldn't ever be possible for someone to legally do these things. It's a risk that both of you take. You being killed and him being prosecuted for your murder or manslaughter. Please stop avoiding the point.

Sorry, I wasn’t avoiding your point. I was trying to answer different points.

As it happens, we don’t really go in for very high risk sexual practices, for exactly that reason. But we accept that if we did then we would both be at risk. And if I died then he should face the consequences. I’m not seeing that as controversial in any way.

The awful Natalie Connolly case is very different because she was off her face - unconscious according to medical evidence - on alcohol and drugs - so couldn’t have conceivably consented. That case is a horrific miscarriage of justice, just like every rape case where the rapist gets off when the woman is too drunk to consent.

Aaaaand this is why people don't listen to feminists now.
The trans thing is the first sensible thing you've campaigned about for YEARS. Unfortunately, because people are so used to you talking utter shite, it's gone right over their heads.

Ok riddle me this? One girl I was involved with told me she had this fantasy of being penetrated whilst she was asleep. Now there is nothing at all wrong with that fantasy I wouldn’t dream of kink shaming her for it, BUT there is a massive issue with say me trying to realise that fantasy for her. No matter how much she may ask me to. Say on that particular occasion she wakes up thinking I am someone else in a panic, or even she decides actually as much as she wanted it in the past in that moment she doesn’t?

She would be essentially waking up to the experience of me raping her, and I don’t care what a court of law would or wouldn’t find me guilty of that would be in my view a rape. I can’t reasonably know what she wants can I? Just because she has outlined what she may want in the past doesn’t necessarily hold true in the moment?

Now ok you might say ok we have trust and respect etc etc and maybe odds are she wakes up loving it and all is fine but there IS a risk that consent violation occurs which is a risk my conscience can’t allow me to take.

As it happens, we don’t really go in for very high risk sexual practices, for exactly that reason.

This isn't about you. Its about the normalisation of people engaging in risky sex practices like choking, knives at the throat, insertion of large objects into vagina, which allows men (never women, is it?) to claim it was "rough sex gone wrong" when the woman dies.

I’ve given my Dom explicit permission to penetrate me whilst I sleep. It’s in writing. We’re both comfortable with that.

But we accept that if we did then we would both be at risk. And if I died then he should face the consequences. I’m not seeing that as controversial in any way.

Wow. Not controversial? So you want society to look the other way while you engage in violent practices which may result in your death and the incarceration of the person who caused it- at our expense. We’re also supposed to ignore the wider implications on society tolerating levels of violence because its sexually stimulates certain people.

And if I died then he should face the consequences

By your logic, why should he face any consequences at all? You think it should be legal to do these things. You consented, it was a tragic accident.

At a time when we are trying to change Male attitudes to entitlement over women’s bodies, I find it troubling that anyone is giving anyone else permission to engage in sex acts with them while they aren’t conscious.

Many many every day practices carry the risk of permanent physical harm or death.

Holding a knife to someone's throat while you fuck them isn't an "everyday activity".

By your logic, why should he face any consequences at all? You think it should be legal to do these things. You consented, it was a tragic accident

Because I would only end up dead because either he ignored my consent being withdrawn (murder) or hadn’t been paying enough attention to safety (manslaughter).

Ok well fair enough but can you understand my misgivings about inflicting the experience of being raped on a woman I love?

Your death and his incarceration affects more than just the two of you.

Because I would only end up dead because either he ignored my consent being withdrawn (murder) or hadn’t been paying enough attention to safety (manslaughter).

You are judging this by your own standards. This isn't about your personal limits. So you do think there are some things which are too risky then? What are they?

Yes, I can. I absolutely can understand your misgivings. I respect you for your position. Mine is just different from yours, that’s all.

Holding a knife to someone's throat while you fuck them isn't an "everyday activity".

But that was his defence - that this was normal for them and that he’d just slipped.

What should have happened was the prosecution taking an animal carcass into court and showing g exactly how hard it is to cut something or someone’s throat in the manner he did. You don’t ‘slip’ and do it. It takes considerable force. This isn’t like slashing your thumb cutting carrots for dinner.

But because the rough sex was normalised he was able to use it as a defence. The jury saw rough sex gone wrong

If the rough sex wasnt normalised, the jury would have seen man rapes woman and cuts her throat

The two castings/ways of putting the scenario are VERY different. Rough sex gone wrong implies an accident. Rape and a cut throat implies a dangerous sexual predator.

How we frame things matters.

You are judging this by your own standards. This isn't about your personal limits. So you do think there are some things which are too risky then? What are they?

It’s personal choice. I can only tell you want the limits of my risk tolerance are, where my personal judgement falls. I can’t claim anything else.

I’m honestly confused by the assertion several people have made that this debate isn’t about personal choices. I can’t see how sex is about anything else.

One woman willingly consents to sex (not BDSM sex, not drunk sex, just sex) with a man where another woman wouldn’t. Doesn’t make the first woman wrong and the second woman right, or vice versa. Maybe the second woman is in a monogamous relationship, or doesn’t find him appealing, or whatever - consent is always about subjective, personal choices.

We don’t live in 1984 (yet). There’s no camera in your bedroom waiting to prosecute you for indulging in consensual bdsm. I don’t understand why you’re so defensive? My current vice is sugar, I don’t take umbrage when people talk about sugar taxes etc, because it isn’t great for me, it’s not good for society and regardless of my enjoyment of it, the consequences are the consequences.

I’ve seen women write that they do not consent to violence in sex and if they’re ever killed in a sex act it did not happen with their consent. It’s absolutely fucked up that people outside of the bdsm community that want nothing to do with it are getting dragged in because it’s being used as noise and a smokescreen for violent abusers to get away with horrific acts.

You can be a virgin, dragged into an alleyway and raped in broad daylight with witnesses and your attacker still get off with the defence that some women like rough, violent sex with strangers so who can say whether he did not believe she consented. The idea that if a safeword was ignored you could prosecute and get a conviction is ludicrous.

This is about consent to violence, not consent to sex.

But that was his defence - that this was normal for them and that he’d just slipped.

What should have happened was the prosecution taking an animal carcass into court and showing g exactly how hard it is to cut something or someone’s throat in the manner he did. You don’t ‘slip’ and do it. It takes considerable force. This isn’t like slashing your thumb cutting carrots for dinner.

But because the rough sex was normalised he was able to use it as a defence. The jury saw rough sex gone wrong

If the rough sex wasnt normalised, the jury would have seen man rapes woman and cuts her throat

The two castings/ways of putting the scenario are VERY different. Rough sex gone wrong implies an accident. Rape and a cut throat implies a dangerous sexual predator.

How we frame things matters.

YY.